Mass Effect 3 Preview

It’s hard not to feel a hefty burden on your shoulders after five long years of colossal sacrifice, fragile allegiances and life and death decisions, and now it’s all finally culminating in the harrowing climax to the Mass Effect saga. Suffice to say, everything is at stake.

That’s true especially of BioWare – the developer now loaded with the delicate task of weaving two games’ worth of disparate choices, relationships and consequences together in a manner that satisfyingly closes the book on one Mr. John Shepard.

If that task doesn’t sound exhausting enough, BioWare has introduced an ambitious (and controversial) cooperative multiplayer mode, the impact of which will reverberate throughout the single-player campaign.

So while Commander Shepard gathers together a united coalition of galactic smackdown to repel the Reaper invasion, the online battlefield will perpetually shift the landscape and dictate the success of the vast conflict.  

“Even when we started working on Mass Effect, it was clear that games were moving towards various forms of integrated multiplayer,” says director Casey Hudson.

“We just weren’t able to find a way to implement it that made sense with the storyline and properly complemented the single-player experience. But with Mass Effect 3, we realised that it finally made sense."

Shepard's Omni Blade makes short work of Cerberus chumps.

"With the entire galaxy in a war for survival, it’s not just Shepard’s exploits that are interesting – there are battles all over the galaxy that would be cool to experience. Letting players take part in that larger war effort was the concept that finally made sense in the Mass Effect universe.”

The grand ambitions of BioWare can’t disguise that ostensibly Galaxy At War is a Horde mode; up to four players can tackle waves of Reaper and Cerberus forces, escalating in magnitude as enemies are vanquished and objectives (such as capturing points as a unit) are completed.

Much like Tom Clancy’s EndWar, the results are uploaded to a global leaderboard and the joint success of the community will dictate the progress of the overall campaign to repel the enemy forces. This information is then fed back into the single-player campaign and reflected across the galaxy.

“It takes place in the war timeframe of Mass Effect 3, but there is no story interaction except for one,” Hudson explains. “The more you succeed in multiplayer, the more successful the overall war effort will be for you as a player in the Mass Effect universe."

"This means that if you then attempt the ending of the single-player experience, you’ll experience a greater level of success in the ending than you would if you had never played multiplayer.”

No doubt the success of the war effort will be presented in nondescript dialogue exchanges across the countless NPCs encountered through the game, but there’s always the risk of a more intrusive presence – one that constantly drives the player back into the cooperative mode. There’s also the question of longevity: once the single-player campaign has ended, where’s the incentive to return?

BioWare promises that Galaxy At War is packed with plenty of versatility and offers a change of pace from the single-player. The exotic races of Asari, Turian, Salarian, Krogan and Drell replace Shepard as customisable playable characters, each packing unique abilities and biotic powers depending on class (Infiltrator, Sentinel, Vanguard, etc.).

The combat has been significantly streamlined as well, honed to maintain a steadier pace of action (the cool down period for powers has been shortened for one) better suited to the frenetic volatile state of the online arena.

Clearly, BioWare is acutely aware of fan concerns and assures that players can find an alternative method of gaining galaxy-wide if they choose not to indulge in this supplementary mode.

However, with the potential to have a wider relevance in the Mass Effect canon, it’s certainly an exciting addition even if we remain sceptical about its worth.